Phil, as you probably know, you're not alone in your belief that ADHD is a a real condition. There has been many discussions and debates on that, often with emotions running high. But a child (or adult) diagnosed with ADHD doesn't mean he/she doesn't have any problems. We all know hyperactive children. But those children don't experience that as something unhealthy. They can feel miserable towards the reactions to them but not the 'condition' on itself. My girlfriend's nephew is hyperactive but he has parents that never made a problem of that. And now at the age of 15 he's actually much calmer.
It's interesting that you want to become a teacher and think about a way to reach the students. In my opinion kids (and adults) can only learn something when they are motivated. A good teacher only needs to motivate his students. There's a
fantastic school in Holland where they let kids teach things when they choose themselves, a bit like the
Summerhill School.
When I went to High School (in Holland), we had parenting classes. But no one paid much attention because kids that age have other things on their mind than parenting. What would be much better is to send every parent a few hours a week to school, where they are being taught how to parent well. And if they don't show up, they don't receive child benifits or risk some kind of obligatory community work. Of course you won't win elections with such a proposal.
For what's it worth, I've written 3 articles about ADHD, which you can find
here,
here and
here. The last one is about a huge scientific scandal that took place in 2004/2005 in Sweden.
Unfortunately the media in Europe isn't so different than in the US. The pharmaceutical industry has a lot of power worldwide and they simply tell the media people not to go with anti-pharmaceutical items or they will pull back as an advertiser, which can result in such a drop of income that it jeopardizes the jobs of the people working there. So only independent media is not afraid to expose it.
I did write to a large Swedish paper once, that had such a one-sided positive article about ADHD and medicine. The pharmaceutical press release was written all over it. I translated my letters and their response in English,
here. Weeks after that, the paper had another journalist writing about ADHD in a much better way, looking at some of the behavioral causes and alternative treatments.
Dennis